Ok, I'll have to admit - I'm stuck. I have Sun Netra X1 and I'm trying to install Gentoo on it, to make it a decent firewall. But I have a problem, while I can't get the network up on Linux - both NIC's are showing MAC-address 00:00:00:00:00:00. I can associate IP-address on a NIC, but I can't lift it up, ifconfig eth0 up says SIOCSIFFLAGS: Invalid argument. I don't know if the cards have been disabled somehow or is it just a problem with the Linux driver (FreeBSD gets the nics up, but I honestly don't have bounds of interest to study pf, while I already have fully working configs for Netfilter/IPtables and I know how it works). It's not the traditional same-MACs-on-SPARC-syndrome (yep, I tested the local-mac-address -setting, no use).

If the gentoo CD doesn't support your card you can give a try to just any other livecd (e.g. ubuntu), see if network works and install from there._________________Powered by (x86) Gentoo Linux since 2003

Gentoo CD does support the card - it has modules for it etc, MACs just show 00:00:00:00:00:00 and the cards won't rise. I installed Gentoo manually (transferred the needed tarballs with USB-stick), and managed to get the network up. Then I bolted the harddisks to where they belong, removed the CD-ROM drive, closed the lid and booted the system back up - and once again I'm lacking MACs.

Also this post seems rather old, I have the same problem. But I think I know why I have it
My NICs lack of MAC after resetting my NVRAM caused by a password problem, which I fixed using a second, blank, NVRAM.

So my actual NVRAM has an invalid HostID and "forgets" every boot the MAC... I think there is a connection_________________huehnerhose @ deviantart